


Space

by DreamsOfSleep



Series: Pepperwood AU [4]
Category: New Girl
Genre: Breaking Up & Making Up, Cohabitation, Couple Fight, Established Relationship, F/M, Introvert, Moving In Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-22 01:03:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7412335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamsOfSleep/pseuds/DreamsOfSleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was the worst fight Julius Pepperwood and Jessica Night ever had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fight

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick little threeshot playing around with Julius Pepperwood and Jessica Night character voices. 
> 
> Don't worry Pepperwood AU fans, I'm still working on ["I Just Want You"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7264318/chapters/16493980); it's just taking longer than I thought it would but I'm a stickler for completing my works so it will get done eventually.

They had been sleeping together for about a month, but always at her place, never at his. He was dreading the conversation he knew was coming.

\---

One night they were lying curled up together in her bed. He was drifting off to sleep when she turned to him and asked him, “How come we never spend the night at your place?”

He opened his eyes and looked over at her. He goes for practical. “Your place is bigger.”

It was true, but only by about a foot. 

“I don’t take up that much space, Julius,” she said laughing slightly. “Plus, we just spend all our time in bed anyway.” She kisses his shoulder. “I just want to see where you live.”

He moves slightly away from her. “I can’t, Jess.”

“What? You have dead bodies in there? A secret family?” she says, still trying to keep things light, still trying to joke about it, but he can hear the undercurrent of pain in her voice.

“Why not?” she whispers. “You have a key to my place, but I can’t even see yours?”

He can’t find the words to explain it to her. “I just can’t…okay? I just need it to be mine. _Just_ mine. It’s not personal, Jess; I never let anybody see my place.”

“This feels pretty personal, Julius,” she says in a hurt tone.

He gets up and reaches into his pants pocket to take out her key. “You want your key back?”

Now she’s angry. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah…so we can be even. You don’t have a key to my place; I don’t have a key to your place.” He holds the key out to her.

“No I don’t want my key back,” she says shoving his hand away from her. “I don’t get why this is such a big deal.”

“I can’t explain it to you, Jess…I just need to have my own place. A space that is just mine.”

“Is this how it’s going to be, Julius? We’re always just going to have our own separate apartments. We’re never going to move in together or have a real life together? You can’t even let me _see_ your place, let alone give me a key to it.”

“We have a real life together, Jess,” he said defensively.

“What? This? You come over and fuck me and then leave whenever you want to go back to your mystery apartment and the real life you can’t tell me about?”

 _Ouch._ He starts getting dressed.

“Where are you going?” she asks him.

“Home,” he said. 

“Is this how it’s going to be, Julius? You’re going to run away every time you don’t want to deal with me? We’re not done talking about this.”

“ _You’re_ not done talking about this, Jess. I’m done. I’m going home.”

He leaves her apartment and slams the door behind him.

\---

He’s walking home at 2AM and missing her but he just can’t find the words to explain this to her to make it right.

He goes home to his empty apartment and collapses into bed with all his clothes on. He just stays awake all night staring at the ceiling. His alarm clock buzzes and he turns it off and gets up to get ready for work.

\---

He’s supposed to be meeting clients today but he’s in a bad mood because of his fight with Jess and he’s cranky because he hasn’t slept all night and he’s just running on caffeine and nicotine.

He yells at some of the clients for being idiots and Mike takes him aside and tells him to check his “personal problems” at the door because he’s costing them money. “Bite me,” he growls challengingly to Mike so Mike sticks him with all the worst clients for the rest of the week, all the whining housewives and rich douchebags with too much money to burn, needing a PI to screw over their spouses. Mike also makes him clean all the weapons in the arsenal closet. _Scut work._ Julius knows he was out of line, but at least the tedious work takes his mind off of Jess.

He snaps at other people in the office and they stay out of his way. He sits outside the back entrance and chain smokes and reads case files so he doesn’t have to sit at his desk and never accidentally looks up and catches Jess’s eye.

\---

He stops eating lunch with her and instead eats lunch alone outside the back entrance. 

He doesn’t walk her home anymore. She leaves at 5PM and he stays late to make sure she’s really gone and not waiting in the lobby for him, trying to corner him and talk to him.

\---

This goes on for a month. They don’t speak to each other and avert their eyes when they have to pass each other at work. Everyone can feel the tense silence between them when they are together in a room. Julius knew he would screw things up. He still loves her, but this is the line in the sand for him. Every time he thinks about her trying to push her way into his space it still pisses him off all over again at the same time it makes him sad that he can’t give that to her. 

He thinks they’re really broken up for good.

\---

One day he’s sitting at his desk and reading case files when Schmidt comes up behind him and slaps him hard across the back of his head.

He clutches the back of his head. “What was that for, Schmidt?” He glares at Schmidt angrily.

“You’ve been walking around here acting like a miserable SOB for over a month and pulling everyone else in the office down into a living hell right along with you. This is your intervention. Get it together, Julius.”

Julius grumbles at Schmidt and takes his work outside to the back entrance. After a few minutes, Schmidt follows him.

\---

Julius and Schmidt sit side by side against the back wall.

Julius is chain smoking while Schmidt sits upwind from him.

“Thought you quit,” said Schmidt.

“Smokers don’t quit; they just pause for a while,” Julius says sardonically.

“What happened, Julius? Did you two break up?”

“Well we haven’t spoken to each other in a month, so you tell me.”

“You’re not going to fight for her?”

He shrugs, looking off into the middle distance. “Maybe she’s better off without me.”

“But you love her, right?”

“Yeah.” He takes a drag and exhales. “More than I’ve ever loved anybody.” 

“So what’s the problem?”

“I couldn’t let her see my place.” It sounds dumb to him even now, but he knows Schmidt gets it.

“She just wants to be part of your life, man. It’s okay to need somebody.”

Julius lets out a huff of rueful laughter at that. He turns his head to look at Schmidt. “Did Jess tell you to say that?”

“What?” Schmidt said in confusion.

“Nothing, man.” He takes another drag and blows out smoke from the corner of his mouth. 

He stubs out his cigarette. He gathers his case files and gets up. “Is that key copy place still open on 6th Street?”

Schmidt smiles at him. “I think so. Cash only though.” He reaches into his suit jacket pocket and hands Julius a couple of bills. 

“Thanks, Schmidt. I’ll pay you back.”

Schmidt waves him off. “My treat. Go get her back, Julius.”

\---

He goes to the key copy place and makes a copy of his apartment key and leaves it on her desk when she is away at lunch.

At 5PM, he’s already down in the lobby waiting for her. She comes up and takes his hand and he walks her to her apartment.

Outside her door, he hugs her to him. 

“I’m sorry, Jess,” he whispers into her hair. 

“You don’t have to say, Julius,” she whispers back. “I know.”

She leads him by the hand inside her apartment to spend the night.


	2. His Place

A few days later when they are walking home, he pulls her arm gently to direct her down a side street away from her place.

“Want to spend the night at my place?” he asks her casually.

She can’t help the grin that breaks out on her face. She stands up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. 

“Guess that’s a yes,” he teases.

\---

His place is located right on the edge between a really good neighborhood and a really bad one, 15 minutes from her place and 30 minutes from the PI firm by foot.

“You walk all this way to get to work every day?” she asks him in surprise.

“I don’t mind it, Jess. I’m used to it; helps me think.”

They get to his apartment door and he takes out his key to open it.

“I have to warn you, Jess…It’s not pretty in there.”

“What? You have a messy bachelor pad, Julius? Piles of laundry everywhere? Dishes in the sink?” she teases.

“Something like that,” he says noncommittally.

He pushes open the door.

Jess steps inside and looks around. 

The living room is completely bare aside from one stuffed couch and a small television in the corner.

She walks into the kitchen and it looks like it has never been used. She opens the fridge. A few boxes of old takeout are in there but otherwise there is no food. She looks in the cabinets but they are also empty. There is no dining room table or chairs.

She walks into his bedroom. The bed is neatly made with threadbare sheets. She opens his closet door. All his suits are neatly lined up. A desk in the corner has some neat stacks of files.

There is no mess; it’s like something out of a magazine. It doesn’t look like anyone lives here at all.

It’s what Schmidt would refer to as “serial killer neat.”

She walks back out to Julius, still standing by the open front door of his apartment watching her.

“You live here, Julius?” Her eyes are sad.

“I sleep here. I live with you,” he replies.

She looks back around the apartment. He knows she’s itching to give it ‘a woman’s touch.’

“You can change it if you want to, Jess,” he says.

“Are you sure?” she asks anxiously. “I don’t want to do it if you don’t want me to.”

“I’m sure,” he says firmly. “You have a key, Jess. You can come here anytime you want to.” He pauses. “Sometimes I just need to be alone for a while though. I don’t mean anything by it. I just need it sometimes.”

She hugs him to her. Their foreheads touch briefly.

“I’m not going anywhere, Julius,” she breathes out. “I’ll still be here when you don’t want to be alone anymore.”


	3. Co-Habitation

One day he comes back to his apartment after working a tough case and she’s there in the kitchen cooking dinner.

He wasn’t expecting her here; he thought she had gone home to her place. He can feel anxiety crawling under his skin, frustration and stress rushing through his veins, the thrum of tension in his body. He doesn’t want to see her. He doesn’t want to talk to her. He doesn’t want to see anybody; he just wants to be alone.

Her head turns when she hears the door open. He shuts it behind him. He doesn’t greet her like he normally does. He works his jaw; it feels like he’s going to pick a fight with her but he bites it back. He walks past her and into his bedroom without speaking to her. He lies down in his bed looking up at the ceiling. His hands run through his hair. 

She comes to stand in the doorway of his bedroom. He thinks she’s going to ask him if he wants to talk about it, which is the worst thing someone could say to him right now because _no_ he doesn’t want to fucking talk about it. He knows if she asks him that right now, they’re going to get into a big fight and then probably break up like all the other women he has been with. He doesn’t want to get into a fight with her, but that’s just where he’s at right now. This is why he didn’t want her to have a key to his place. He just needs to let this _thing_ burn out of him on its own. If anyone is around him, he’s going to take them down right along with him whether he wants to or not. It’s not something he can control; it’s just something that lives in him.

But she doesn’t ask him if he wants to talk about it. She doesn’t say anything. She stands uncertainly in the doorway for a while and then cautiously approaches him on the bed. She lies down next to him. After a few minutes, he spoons her to him. He can’t help touching her, even when he’s like this. He feels her warm presence next to him. He breathes her in. He feels the tension start to leave his body, all the anxiety and frustration and stress draining out of him. He thinks she can feel it too. She relaxes into him. She looks up into his face and he kisses her. “Thanks, honey,” he whispers to her and she smiles.

She gets up and he follows her back to the kitchen for dinner.

\---

She fills his apartment with colorful throw rugs and paintings and pillows and actual furniture.

There’s actual food in the kitchen, not takeout containers, but honest to goodness fruit and vegetables and meat and bread.

She’s messy. She leaves her arts and crafts projects everywhere and there are always dishes and pots and pans in the sink from her baking cupcakes and cookies and brownies, but he likes it because it reminds him that she’s actually here now, that she’s comfortable in his space.

He doesn’t need to be alone now, doesn’t need to ask her for space, because he never wants to be somewhere where she can’t follow him, where she can’t be by his side.


End file.
